Helene: What Georgia pharmacists need to know

As you recover from Hurricane Helene, remember that the Georgia Board of Pharmacy has activated Policy 14, which covers emergency situations like this one. Here’s the gist:

Emergency refills

You may give patients up to a 30-day supply of their medication.

Caveats:

• This does not apply to controlled substances.
• In your professional judgment, the prescription drug must be essential to the maintenance of the patient’s life or to the continuation of therapy.
• You must make a “good faith effort” to record all pertinent information as required by law, indicate that it is an “emergency refill prescription,” and keep those records.
• You must inform the patient that the prescription drug “is being provided without the practitioner’s authorization and that authorization of the practitioner is required for future refills.”
• As soon as possible, as conditions permit, you must notify the patient’s prescriber.

Click here for the official statement from the Board of Pharmacy (PDF).

Out of state pharmacy staff

During the state of emergency, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians not licensed in Georgia (but licensed in other states) may do their jobs in Georgia.

Such a pharmacist “may obtain a temporary license to dispense prescription drugs in areas affected by the declared disaster during the time that the state of emergency exists.”

Such a technician or intern “may assist the pharmacist in dispensing prescription drugs in affected disaster areas” during the emergency. There are important caveats — read that official statement — and most important, stay safe!

No drugs, no viruses

We’ve written before how using a simple saline nasal spray can go a long way toward preventing respiratory diseases, including Covid-19. Now researchers at Harvard think they can go one better. They’ve created a “drug-free nasal spray that forms a gel-like matrix that captures and neutralizes germs.”

It’s called PCANS, and it uses a bunch of ingredients that are in the FDA’s Inactive Ingredient Database. As a co-author explained:

“We developed a drug-free formulation using these compounds to block germs in three ways — PCANS forms a gel-like matrix that traps respiratory droplets, immobilizes the germs, and effectively neutralizes them, preventing infection.”

Caveat: It hasn’t been tested on humans, just “a 3D-printed replica of a human nose.”

CMS hit with data breach … in 2023

More than a year ago, the MOVEit data breach came to light, with a huge list of victims including banks, law firms, and even the University System of Georgia.

And now you can add CMS to the list.

The agency has now confirmed suffering a data breach incident as a result of the MOVEit vulnerability that saw sensitive data belonging to 3,112,815 people stolen. Many of those are either deceased, or not Medicare beneficiaries, since CMS only notified roughly 950,000 people.

New schizophrenia drug

The FDA has approved the first new drug for schizophrenia in decades. Bristol Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy is different because it targets the brain’s cholinergic receptors (instead of dopamine receptors) by affecting acetylcholine. It shouldn’t cause the common antipsychotic side effects like weight gain or tiredness.

But … the studies of Cobenfy have been pretty small and short term.

Only three controlled studies of the drug’s efficacy have been published, and all three lasted for only five weeks. So it is not clear how effective Cobenfy will be over longer periods, or whether it has long-term neurological side effects.

Alzheimer’s/cancer connection

People with Alzheimer’s seem to have a lower risk of contracting certain types of cancer, notable the colorectal variety — sometimes that risk is actually cut in half. Now Chinese scientists think they’ve found the reason.

And what d’ya know, it’s all about gut microbes. Specifically, mice that had more Prevotella bacteria in their intestines were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s but less likely to develop GI cancers.

When mice were treated with Prevotella-derived compounds, the animals showed cognitive dysfunction and resistance to tumor development in their rectum and colon.

They think that Prevotella suppresses gut inflammation (and thus suppresses tumor formation), but at the same time makes the gut “leakier,” allowing more microbial byproducts to enter the bloodstream, where they “may create a toxic environment that damages dopamine neurons.”

The Long Read: GLP-1

You might have noticed that GLP-1 agonists seem to treat a lot of issues, from the obvious (diabetes, obesity) to less obvious (alcoholism, sleep apnea). What’s up with that? Nature explains in “Why do obesity drugs seem to treat so many other ailments?”

Saving you a click

“This Many Crosswords Each Week Could Benefit Our Brains as We Age” — more than three times a week.